Daily Search Forum Recap: January 20, 2010

Here is a recap of what happened in the search forums today, through the eyes of the Search Engine Roundtable and other search forums on the web.

Search Engine Roundtable Stories:

First Image for Jesus in Google Images is Offensive
If you search for [Jesus] in Google Images you may notice that the first image has a picture of Jesus smoking a cigaret, with a can of beer in his hand. Here is a picture of the search result: A searcher complained about this at the Google Web Search Help forums yesterday. So far, there has been no reply by anyone, including a Googler. I doubt Google will remove the image result. These types of

Google Maps Bugs: Terrain View Missing Labels & LBC Categories Wrong
There are two bugs to report in the Google Maps space. The first is that the Google Maps Terrain view has removed the country labels from the maps. The second is that categories are being added to business listings without them being added by the business owner in the local business center. The maps terrain issue was reported in the Google Maps Help forum. Here is a picture of what I see in the terrain

Should Google Add "Last Updated" Note to All Search Results?
For new content, Google often adds to the search result a little note of some sort that says how new the content is. Normally in the form of X minutes ago or X hours ago. I have some screen shots of how this works over here. But should Google always do this? Should Google show the date the last time that page was updated in the search results even if it means X years ago?

Study on Google Personalized Search & Re-Ranking Shows Minor SEO Changes
In December, Google announced they will be personalizing all Google results by default. SEOs rightfully were a bit on edge after that announcement, but we did link to an old study on how personalized results impact rankings, overall. The study has been revised and posted at the Huomah Blog. I won't go through all the points, but the conclusion is that currently, the personalized changes are so minor that it is not worth SEOs freaking

A Canonicalizable Tool
Susan Moskwa, a Google Webmaster Trends Analysts, posted a thread at the Google Webmaster Help forums announcing a new tool her husband created. The tool is named canonicalizable tool and it basically shows you potential canonicalization issues with your home pages. Here is a screen shot: What I find interesting, and this is not new, but honestly, it is new to me. Susan Moskwa's husband is the lead developer of the LinkScape tools at SEOmoz.

Microsoft To Purge Search Data on Bing After 6 Months
Microsoft's Bing blog announced they will reduce the time frame they store search data, from 18 months to only 6 months. This is in response to the European Union's request that search companies reduce the time they store such data. Microsoft Bing is the first major search engine to comply with those demands. Bing said: Specifically, we are reducing the amount of time we store IP addresses from searchers to 6 months. Currently we keep